"Svitlana Mandrych was one of the only people left who could try to keep the town, once home to 20,000 people, from collapse.
A former #kindergarten teacher turned deputy #mayor, Mandrych took over leadership of the town when the mayor moved to the city of #Zaporizhzhia a few months ago along with much of the city council. She spends her days underground fielding nonstop calls with the help of two remaining council members and the company of a dog named Bullet..."
“Everybody has a different fear tolerance,” she said. “I cannot leave the people of Orikhiv behind.”
Mandrych embodies a remarkable resilience that is playing out in towns and cities across #Ukraine, as ordinary people work in extraordinary conditions..."
2/
Bonus thread: Russian abductions in 🇺🇦 - a 🧵. I've met 100s of elected leaders in areas inside/close to occupation forces. Not only I (but US👇🏽) warned of this. https://twitter.com/decodingtrolls/status/1504076185369731078?s=46&t=DZh0FeUc24ZO-HHNHV4PvA
“Russian abductions in 🇺🇦 - a 🧵. I've met 100s of elected leaders in areas inside/close to occupation forces. Not only I (but US👇🏽) warned of this. Same model used in occupied Lugansk (also worked there) & Donetsk: abduction, torture, murder of elected/activists. How 🇷🇺 rolls! 1/”
"to survive a full-blown war that a year ago seemed almost unimaginable in 21st-century #Europe. They struggle to subsist, unsure what each day will bring.
After months of war, #Orikhiv #Zaporoizhzhia #Ukraine is on the cusp of becoming unlivable for the 2,000 residents left.
Virtually all of the town’s 56 apartment complexes are damaged or destroyed, and 70 percent of homes are damaged, Mandrych said..."
3/
Bonus thread: https://twitter.com/decodingtrolls/status/1504076188238635018?s=46&t=DZh0FeUc24ZO-HHNHV4PvA
"Most of the day, its streets are practically empty; residents spend most hours underground or near a bunker, emerging only to seek humanitarian aid in the mornings, before 11 a.m., when the shelling usually subsides.
There is no power, water or gas in the town. There’s no longer a hospital or ambulance in the town. Residents must rely on the military to rush them to a field hospital when missiles — or illnesses — strike...."
4/
“We are waiting for this offensive to happen,” Mandrych said. “We wish it could happen sooner.”
Mandrych and her small team have managed to give out 600 wood-burning heating units to residents and have ordered 350 more, but that will still be short of the nearly 1,300 they estimate are needed to heat all remaining households. She worries people will fall through the cracks, especially those in remote areas..."
5/
“"I fear forgetting about them and not getting them enough attention,” she said. With the cold winter ahead, she said: “People could die.”
On Monday morning, Mandrych was being asked to do many things at once: A woman came to her with a list of residents requesting food. Another showed her a list of addresses of people needing blankets. A man with a cigarette asked her how to deliver financial stipends to residents..."
6/
"There are so few people left to serve the town that Mandrych has had to devise creative solutions. A former city hall custodian is now a secretary. A city-employed driver delivers humanitarian aid. The car owned by the mayor’s office was bombed — what’s left of it is still parked outside — so the driver uses her personal vehicle...."
7/
"Daily life depends on leadership, and so much of the work falls on Mandrych. She sleeps only three to four hours a night. Whenever she gets to go home to her husband and adult son, they live in a basement.
“It’s a good thing my mother taught me to be tough,” she said. “We will relax after we win the war.”
Raised by a widow, Mandrych has spent her whole life in Orikhiv, studying in the town’s now-destroyed school and working for the government since she was 17..."
8/
"The #Ukrainian soldiers based nearby gave her the call sign “Angel.” At one point, early in the war, she was helping them build concrete barriers on Orikhiv’s outskirts when shelling began. A soldier shouted: “Angel, get down!” They asked later whether she was afraid. She said she was not.
The shelling is getting louder and more frequent, residents say...."
9/
"One man waiting in line in the city hall bunker to report damage to his home was Oleksii Belik, 67, a mustachioed retired engineer who returned alone to Orikhiv after evacuating with his wife earlier in the war.
Belik said he came back to protect his belongings. He doesn’t have a proper bomb shelter; his basement ceiling is about an inch thick. He said he brought a couch down there to sleep on, but it grew moldy after two days...."
10/
""So he stays upstairs, where half the windows are bombed out and the city-provided heating unit warms just one room.
There’s no electricity to watch the news, but Belik said he sometimes manages to listen to the radio. He heard about Kherson city’s liberation, he said, giving him hope for his own region.
“We can only live with hope,” he said. “It keeps us alive and sane.”..."
11/
"In line in front of Belik was Eleonora Syzonenko, 44, who wanted help fixing the windows, door and roof of her home. Doing so required extensive paperwork, and she was frustrated by the chaotic process in the cramped, understaffed basement hallway.
So, like many other people at the city hall on Monday, she went looking for the acting mayor.
“We don’t have a representative from our neighborhood, we don’t get information about the aid and when it will be delivered,” she told Mandrych..."
12/
"“Right now, I want to get some more water, but because there is no one responsible for my neighborhood, I don’t know what to do.”
“That’s simple: Just make a list of people, and go get the water,” Mandrych replied, explaining the process.
The woman thanked her. On her way out, she told a reporter: “These people are very good. They help us with everything. It’s just too many people here at the same time.”
13/
By the time she got back in line to continue her request, the crowd had thinned. Residents were returning home as their unofficial 11 a.m. cutoff for life above ground approached.
The acting mayor listened closely to the skies, hoping for a quiet afternoon.
14/14
DecodïngTrolls
Nora Y.
FinbarrFella